AONTÚ PARTY LEADER Peadar Tóibín has railed against the large salary attached to the Ceann Comhairle position in Dáil Éireann, describing it as “absolutely crazy and wrong”. 

Tóibín, a TD for Meath West believes the €255,000 salary attached to the job needs to be reduced and that a two-term limit should be introduced for holders of the office. 

Currently, the salary attached to the position exceeds that paid to the Taoiseach. The basic salary attached to the role is €113,679 with an additional allowance of €141,834. 

The Ceann Comhairle is essentially the chairperson of the Dáil and has responsibility for keeping order among TDs while the Dáil is in session. 

The position is filled via a secret ballot of TDs at the start of every Dáil term and the person who is elected to the position is then automatically guaranteed re-election as a TD in the following election. 

This is because the Ceann Comhairle position is impartial and the TD who holds it essentially forfeits their responsibilities as a TD and no longer votes on legislation or other Dáil business. 

Since 2016, Fianna Fáil’s Seán Ó Fearghail has been Ceann Comhairle and as such was automatically returned as a TD in Kildare South in this year’s general election. 

Despite previously saying he did not want to seek a third term in the role, it was confirmed last week that Ó Fearghail is now considering a bid. 

Independent TD for Wexford, Verona Murphy has also thrown her hat into the ring and would be the first woman to hold the position if elected. 

Fianna Fail TD John McGuinness has today also filed his nomination papers for the role. 

Speaking to The Journal, Aontú leader Peadár Tóibín said he has yet to decide who he will vote for but that he believes the role is in need of an overhaul. 

“Seán Ó Fearghail has been a very successful Ceann Comhairle over the last number of years, but I do think it is good to mix it up,” Tóibín said. 

“Don’t get me wrong, it is a hard, hard job,” Tóibín said, noting the long hours attached to the work and the comprehension required of the legalities around how Dáil debates are chaired.

“Without a good Ceann Comhairle, you can see the Dáil fall into dysfunction. A good Ceann Comhairle is very, very important to the functioning of democracy but the salary is way out of kilter.”

Tóibín believes that a two-term limit should be introduced to the role because of the cost it has on the Ceann Comhairle’s constituency in terms of the loss of a TD for a Dáil term. 

“I’ll be honest, Aontú has already said we have too many TDs. We need to decouple the constitutional ratios between population and TDs because it is not necessary. What we do need is proper town and borough councils to add that layer of democracy locally,” he added.

All TDs are overpaid

Tóibín added that he has long believed all TDs in Dáil Éireann are overpaid and that the Government should change the law to reduce the salary attached to being a TD and attached to being a minister.

Currently, the basic salary paid to each of Ireland’s 174 TDs is €113,679. 

“There has to be an understanding amongst elected representatives of what is going on at kitchen tables around the country, in terms of how people are struggling to make ends meet.

“There’s a line in a Beck song which says ‘you can’t write if you can’t relate’, but I think equally you can’t govern if you can’t relate to the experiences of people,” Tóibín said. 

In 2021, the TD introduced a private members’ bill to cut TDs salaries by 25% during the Covid-19 pandemic but the legislation was never progressed. 

Tóibín said his party, who in this election went from one to two TDs, plans to look at introducing a cap on the salary of the Ceann Comhairle, ministers and TDs again in the next Dáil term.